“Aye, sir. Then should I stay here with you?”
Àdham started to tell him to run on down the hill and warn Caithness and Àdham’s other men when a great war cry came from somewhere southward to his right and another answered from above them, much too nearby.
Grabbing Tadhg’s arm, he pointed to a large bush with a boulder in front of it and gestured for him to dive into the bush and keep quiet. Finding thick shrubbery in a nearby copse of trees, Àdham took cover, and none too soon.
The hillside was suddenly alive with archers, running full tilt down the hill.
Pandemonium reigned below, too.
Realizing that Carrach’s archers had stopped at the edge of the woods and had begun raining arrows on the plain below, Àdham stayed put long enough to be sure that no more of them were trailing the onslaught. Then, easing his way from the shrubbery, keeping his eyes and ears open for any nearby noise that might herald an enemy creeping about, he sent a prayer aloft for MacNab and the rest of their men and moved toward the bush where Tadhg lay hidden.
“Art there, lad?” Àdham murmured.
“Aye, sir. Be it safe tae come out?”
“As safe as anywhere hereabouts might be. They’re raining arrows down on everyone below us on the plain. D’ye ken this area well?”
“No to say well, sir,” Tadhg replied hesitantly. “I ken the road we took from Rothiemurchus tae the river Spean. And I ken some o’ what lay ahead as we came. But I dinna ken the loch south of us, nor where all them men came from. Forbye, the clouds be lower on the mountaintops, and a mist be growing below.”
“I don’t know the area, either,” Àdham admitted. “You must go back uphill, then, and find Sir Ivor. He and his archers are sorely needed if they can hie themselves back down here without meeting more of Carrach’s men. Malcolm is south of here somewhere. He had too few men with him to attack galleys full of Islesmen, so he may be trying to approach through those towering hills behind us.”
“Sakes, sir, did ye see how high some of them mountains be?”
“Just find Sir Ivor, Tadhg. Tell him I’ll set up above the archers who ran past us and see how many I can pick off by myself before they find me. I know of no way to get past them to our other men, so I’ll doubtless do more good from here.”
“Ye should keep me quiver then, sir,” Tadhg said, slipping that article off and offering it. “I ha’ me dirk and me sword, so I’ll be safe enough,” he added. “God kens, ye’ll take down more o’ the bastards wi’ them arrows than I could.”
Accepting the quiver and Tadhg’s bow, as well, Àdham bade him farewell. Then, moving cautiously downhill, he kept to the thickest part of the forest and tried to ignore the din of shouts and terrified screams below. Impulse urged him to run down to aid his men or anyone else of the royal army that he could help. But the part of him that Mar, Malcolm, and Fin together had trained knew better than to fling himself into a fray where he would likely die before he could aid anyone.
He would aid them by taking down Carrach’s archers.
Chapter 21
Fiona had awakened early that morning from a terrifying, if vague, nightmare and had experienced much stronger concern for Àdham since then. She feared for his safety, even for his life, and hoped desperately that God had not granted her Granny Rosel’s gift of the Second Sight.
Whether it was the magical Sight or not, Fiona did not want to talk about her dream or her feelings. Not only was she certain to make the other women fret more than they already did, despite their insistence that women must not, but if she could hug her worry to herself, surely she would soon come to her senses.
Fortunately, the rain had stopped, leaving only a mist. So, they were able to open the shutters again, giving the women fresh air and light enough to attend to the mending they had neglected during the darker, rainy days. Fiona was grateful for the task and found it calming.
Later, she would help Catriona and the twins prepare baskets of food from Finlagh’s supplies to take to families whose men had gone with Àdham. When they delivered the baskets that afternoon, they could take all three of the dogs with them.
She would have to leash Sirius, though, until she was certain that, thanks to all the rain, he would no longer be able to track Àdham’s scent.
At midday, the hillside below Àdham was red with blood and littered with the dead and dying. But he no longer heard clashings of steel nearby, and he had run out of arrows. How many of the enemy remained alive above him or hidden between him and the plain below he did not know. But the distant, gut-wrenching cacophony of cries and shrieks of pain down there seemed interminable.
He heard no sound of human, beast, or bird near him in the forest.
Returning to the ancient oak where he’d left Tadhg’s bow and empty quiver, he climbed it. Hidden from below amid its branches, and despite the mist, he could see a wide slice of the plain, bordered by a hill to the south on his left, the mouth of the river Lochy ahead, the castle just north of it, and a length of the plain beyond. Thicker mist hid more distant hills in the north and west. The plain lay in carnage.
Evidently, Alasdair Carrach’s archers had attacked from the hillside at the same time that Donal Balloch’s men had swarmed in from the south, likely just north of what he had learned was the river Nevis, which tumbled into the upper end of Loch Linnhe from its formidable mountain range above and to the south.
A sea of men still moved on the flatlands below him. Not one looked like an ally. Each man seemed to be seeking out and killing any of the fallen who moved.
Not many did. Most men on the ground lay dead still.
The battle had ended in disaster for the Earl of Mar and the royal army.
The only encouraging sign Àdham could see was that the castle drawbridge was up and Mar’s banner and that of Caithness still flew from the tower keep.
Deducing from such signs that Donal Balloch had beached his boats on the shore between the river Lochy’s mouth and that of the Nevis, Àdham considered finding and destroying them to prevent Balloch’s escape. But why, he asked himself with a grimace, would Balloch need an escape route now that he had won?
Moreover, he would have left men to guard those boats, and one man with a sword could do little against what would likely be many more.
The plain truth was that the Islesman was as clever a tactician as others had said he was. If his men had not carried their boats through Glen Tarbet, they had either stolen some from Loch Linnhe’s west shore or allied clans neighboring the loch had provided boats for them. But it no longer mattered how they had got there so quickly. They had, and they had won. He hoped that Malcolm and the men with him somewhere on the west shore of Loch Linnhe had kept themselves safe.
Aside from the two banners atop the castle’s tower keep, Àdham recognized none belonging to allies or member clans of Clan Chattan. Moreover, the two earls’ banners still flying might mean only that although Donal had seized the castle, he had not yet ordered the banners lowered. In any event, neither Mar nor Caithness would have stayed inside, so both men were likely dead.
Even if one or both had survived, Àdham knew he could not count on them or himself staying that way. Nor could he return by the route he had taken to reach Inverlochy or go anywhere until he could gain some idea of what had happened to his clansmen. Those still alive must fear that he had abandoned them or was dead. The Camerons and others on the far side of the rain-swollen river might yet live.
To divert his mind from such thoughts, he reminded himself that he had killed thirty to fifty of Carrach’s archers before running out of targets and usable arrows. As it was, he had had to move frequently, because enemy archers had soon noticed that their own men were falling with arrows in their backs.
Survivors likely still searched for the archer or archers who had shot them.
The woods remained eerily silent. No animal or man made
a sound. Even so, Àdham descended from the oak tree as silently as he could and moved cautiously upward through the forest, determined to find a vantage point from which he could see more of the field below. Moving in any other direction, he was certain, would cast him right into enemy arms.
As he made his way amid the trees, aware that others were likely doing so, too, he kept careful watch ahead, behind, and below, glancing occasionally upward.
So it was that, as he passed between two tall trees, the blow from above struck without warning. Blackness descended.
“Bless me soul! Àdham, speak t’ me! Ye canna be dead. I willna let ye die.”
The urgent, yet strangely hushed voice echoed irritatingly through a vast black distance, its Scots words barely understood to mean that he had somehow erred and must collect his wits to make things right.
Was it Uncle Fin who called him? Was he in trouble again? Might Fin punish him this time or simply warn him again? He hated to disappoint Uncle Fin.
“God bethankit, ye’re breathing,” the voice muttered. “I see that. Now open your eyes, damn ye. ’Tis nae time for sleeping, for I need ye! Wake up!”
Not Uncle Fin’s voice but a raspier one, and the man was shaking him. Uncle Fin did not shake people. He might take a stiff tawse to one’s backside, but no shaking. It was someone else who issued orders and demanded obedience.
So many men had given him orders that sometimes their voices . . .
The thought ended in a groan that sounded too loud for safety. Safety was important, although why . . . he could not think. . . .
“Àdham! Open yer eyes, or I swear I’ll clout ye again, although I be weak as a newborn kit m’self.”
Mar! Àdham’s eyes opened instantly. The rest of him threatened to lie right where it was, though, every inch of it and for a good long while.
The man who loomed over him looked less like an earl than anyone Àdham had seen before. The face was right, but the man was muddy and bedraggled from head to toe. Moreover, he was still shaking him.
“Stop,” Àdham muttered. “Don’t shake me, sir. My head aches as if someone had split it right down the middle.”
“That was me. And if ye dinna come tae your senses quick, I’ll do worse tae ye. Nae, lad, dinna shut yer eyes again!”
Memory returned in a flood, forcing Àdham to collect himself.
“Mar, stop bellowing at me!” he growled. “You’ll bring Balloch’s men down on us, or up to us if we’re still where I was when—”
“Aye, sure, we still be here. Where else would we be? I canna carry me own self, let alone a great gowk like ye be. But we canna stay here, lad. They still be busy the noo, searching amongst the bodies below, seeking more good men tae kill. They’ll swarm this hillside anon tae do the same to us. Here now, I’ll help ye.”
“How did you get here, sir? Where are the rest of our men?”
“I got here ’cause one o’ me own lads fell on me when he was shot, and then another fell atop him,” Mar said. “I couldna move, because I’d got an arrow in me thigh. So I stayed put, perforce, trying no tae screech, till I sensed that there be few o’ them villains remaining nearby and managed tae wriggle out from under me protectors whilst doing me best tae avoid more damage tae me leg.”
That explained his bedraggled appearance. “Where were you?”
“North o’ yon hill as shoots up southwest o’ the castle, the one as keeps us from seeing all o’ the loch’s northeast bank. So I crept round tae the hill’s backside, which I’m thinking now may be how those villains came down upon us.”
“I think so, too,” Àdham said. “Have you any water?”
“Nary a drop. But the river Nevis lies none so far south o’ here. I’m thinking that may be the best way for us tae go, too. If we can ford it—”
“It will be as rain-swollen as the Lochy, and Donal will have left a good-sized force there to guard his boats,” Àdham said. “If it were possible to skirt the battle site and get to Tor Castle—”
“Skirt the field or no, we’d ha’ more rivers tae cross, and Tor Castle be a day’s march or more north o’ here in conditions like this,” Mar said flatly. “We’d never get so far alive. I dinna think ye comprehend the damage below yet, lad.
“Anyone on our side who were still alive,” he added, “unless he be royalty or gey wealthy, be dead the noo. Balloch’s men strolled about earlier, ‘putting men down,’ as they said. I heard one say that Donal Balloch and Alasdair Carrach together lost only seven-and-twenty o’ their men.”
“They lied,” Àdham said grimly, forcing himself to ignore the painfully pounding dizziness in his head as he sat up. “I had two full quivers of arrows and then collected all I could find. And every arrow I shot hit its mark. I doubt I killed everyone I hit, but I know that I killed more than seven-and-twenty.”
“Good, because they ha’ besieged Jamie’s castle. My men can hold it for a sennight or longer, but the sooner we get word tae Jamie tae hie hisself here . . .”
As Mar muttered on, Àdham conducted a silent survey of his own body, concluding that, other than a nearly broken head and scrapes and scratches from shrubbery through which he had passed, he was in one piece and relatively fit.
Mar said gruffly, “I was a fool, Àdham. This disaster be nobbut mine own doing. I was their commander, and I behaved like a feckless bairn. Sakes, young Caithness showed more sense than I did, and so did ye.”
“Then Caithness will make an even greater commander than you have been because of this experience,” Àdham said firmly.
Mar was silent for so long that Àdham turned his head despite the pain and looked at him. Seeing tears well in the older man’s eyes sent a chill through him.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
“That damnable rain of arrows happened,” Mar said. “Caithness was struck in the first volley, right through the neck. He collapsed and died where he stood. Atholl, God rot him, need nae longer worry that the son who so strongly disagreed with him might one day inherit his titles and estates.”
Àdham’s throat closed. He felt tears in his eyes and had all he could do not to howl.
“I will blame myself for his death till I meet my own,” Mar said.
Àdham had no words of comfort to offer him.
“Wi’ them lasses a-walking out by theirselves as they do, as often as they do, ’tis a rare pity we canna get closer,” Hew Comyn muttered on a mist-shadowed hillside northeast of Finlagh as they watched the ghostlike figures of Fiona and the twins heading down into the woods west of the castle. “I’d no let my sister behave so.”
“I’ve seen how ye treat your sister,” Dae replied. “But Raitt be surrounded by Mackintoshes. Them woods yonder be full o’ crofts wi’ who kens how many men and lads left on them tae help look after yon tower. I’m no going near ’em, and ye be the one as said last time, Hew, that we canna get too close tae the castle.”
“Dinna be such a Lowland feardie, Dae. Ormiston’s daughter will still make a grand hostage. I havena heard nowt about leaving her be, neither.”
“Sakes, I dinna ken what good we’d be a-doing by abducting the wench the noo,” Dae grumbled. “If ye’d wanted tae help Alexander o’ the Isles, we should ha’ gone west wi’ all them others tae fight wi’ Donal Balloch and them.”
“Balloch doesna need us,” Hew said curtly. “Moreover, me da said tae stay here, lest them Mackintoshes and Fin o’ the Battles take advantage o’ the fighting in the west tae steal Raitt from us.”
“Like your lot stole it from them during Harlaw, d’ye mean?”
“Hush yer gob,” Hew hissed. “That’s blethers, that is.”
Fiona’s mood darkened more as the day went on, and the strong feeling that something was amiss with Àdham refused to leave her. As she made her way with Katy and Clydia through the rain-and-mist-damp woods, she hitched the wool shawl sh
e’d borrowed from Catriona higher to cover her hair as well as her torso.
She enjoyed aiding Finlagh’s people as much as she had enjoyed similar duties on her father’s estates. Her spirits lifted when the first woman they visited—a middle-aged wife with two youngsters still at home while her older sons and husband were away with the warriors—welcomed them with pleasure and dignity.
Fiona’s proficiency with the Gaelic had improved, although she still needed someone to translate most of what others said to her and what she said to them. She, Catriona, and the twins had filled six baskets, so they soon moved on to deliver the others.
Just as they were leaving the fifth cottage, a renewal of fear for Àdham struck Fiona forcibly. Swallowing hard, fighting her own tension, she said with forced calm, “Katy, I’d like to stop and visit Granny Rosel on our way back, if we may.”
“Aye, sure,” Katy said. “We’ll take this last basket to her, although she will likely refuse it, as she usually does, and tell us to take it to someone who needs it more.”
“And if she doesn’t,” Clydia added, “we’ll be coming out again tomorrow with more baskets, and Granny Rosel will be gey pleased to see us today.”
The old lady welcomed them with her toothless smile, but when her gaze met Fiona’s, she spoke briefly to her in the Gaelic, clearly asking a question.
“What’s troubling ye is what she wants to know,” Clydia said quietly.
“Ask her if the Second Sight has visited her since our men left,” Fiona said. “I have felt frightened for Àdham all day. I felt better when we visited and talked with the other women, but I fear that that was just my own sense of duty and not wanting to burden them with my feelings. Does she know if there’s been a battle?”
Nodding, Clydia spoke to Granny Rosel, who put a gentle hand on Fiona’s shoulder and looked directly at her as she replied.
Katy said, “She says she experienced the Sight only the day her man died in battle, never again. However, Fiona,” Katy added hastily when Fiona’s eyes filled with tears, “she also says that if a man and woman have a strong enough union, they may, by some unknown way, share feelings or emotions even at great distance.”
The Reluctant Highlander Page 30
